“Here's your dollar—give us the dog!”
The man looked much surprised. Not many little eight-year-old boys have a dollar in their trousers pocket.
“Where did you get it?” he asked.
“I earned every cent of it,” answered poor Dicky with a lump in his throat and a choking voice. “I brought in coal and cut kindlings for most six months before I got enough, and there ain't another tool-box in the world so good as that one for a dollar—but I want Bruno!”
{Illustration: “Here's your dollar—give us the dog'”}
Then the pound-man showed them a little flight of steps that led up to a square hole in the wall of the pound, and told them to go up and look through it and see if the dog was there. They climbed up and put their two rosy eager faces at the rough little window. “Bruno! Bruno!” called little Lola, and no Bruno came; but every frightened homesick little doggy in that prison poked up his nose, wagged his tail, and started for the voice. It didn't matter whether they were Fidos, or Carlos, or Rovers, or Pontos; they knew that they were lonesome little dogs, and perhaps somebody had remembered them. Lola's tender heart ached at the sight of so many fatherless and motherless dogs, and she cried,&&
“No, no, you poor darlings! I haven't come for you; I want my own Bruno.”
“Sing for him, and may be he will come,” said Dicky; and Lola leaned her elbow on the window sill and sang:&&
Lit-tle shoes are sold at the gate-way of Heaven,
And to all the tattered lit-tle an-gels are giv-en;
Slum-ber my dar-ling, Slum-ber my dar-ling,
Slum-ber my dar-ling sweet-ly.
Now Bruno was so tired with running from the pound-man, so hungry, so frightened, and so hoarse with barking that he had gone to sleep; but when he heard Lola's voice singing the song he knew so well, he started up, and out he bounded half awake—the dearest, loveliest little brown dog in the world, with a cunning curly tail sticking up in a round bob behind, two long silky ears that almost touched the ground, and four soft white feet.